Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

What an extraordinary performance we have seen from the Prime Minister today. The Prime Minister of this country is demanding that someone who is alternately a 'precious petal' and someone who is a person of 'monstrous arrogance' should help her out of a problem of her own making. Let me say this: it is not the opposition's job to support bad policy from a bad government. It is not the opposition's job to save the government from a mess of its own making when there is an alternative, and when that alternative has been proven to work.

I am not so inclined under the circumstances of today's performance by this Prime Minister to rescue her from her own difficulties. It is not the job of the coalition and it is not the job of the opposition to rescue a failed and failing government. It is interesting that the first sign of discomfort from this Prime Minister—the first sign of gracelessness from this Prime Minister, whose every day in this place betrays a bearing unworthy of the high office she holds—was when she started talking about the visit to this country of President Obama. Let me make it absolutely crystal clear that the coalition welcomes the visit to this country of President Obama. We will always welcome a visit to this country by the President of the United States. The big question is: will this Prime Minister be around to welcome the President of the United States when he gets here?

The coalition has a very, very clear policy. It is a policy that has been proven to work. Our policy, in a nutshell, is offshore processing at Nauru, it is temporary protection visas and it is the option of turning boats around where that can safely be done. Our policy is a policy that has been shown to work.

It did work. It did work in the past; it can work and it will work in the future. When the coalition's policy was put into practice by the former government between 2002 and 2007 we averaged just three boats a year in this country. Just three boats a year! Since that policy was junked by members opposite, led by the former Prime Minister and the current Prime Minister, we have had at some stages no fewer than three boats a week. Three boats a year under the coalition's policy and three boats a week under the government's policy. I say to the government: go back to the policy that worked. Drop the stubbornness, forget the pride, drop the 'anywhere but Nauru' policy and go back to the policy that worked. If you had any respect for the welfare of our country, if you had any respect for the safety of boat people and if you had any concern to preserve good relations with our neighbours you would go back to the policy that worked. That is what members opposite should do.

The Prime Minister used to delight—when she had another job, and in another time—in putting out press releases. The press releases were invariably headed 'another boat, another policy failure'. There were not very many press releases, I can tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker, because there were not very many boats. Since this government and this Prime Minister changed the policy there have been 240 policy failures; 240 boats and more than 12,000 illegal arrivals in this country—all the fault of this government.

It is all the fault of this government because this government was not magnanimous enough to leave well enough alone. All the riots in detention centres and all the terrible tragedies that we have seen have arisen because this government was too arrogant, too proud and too stubborn to accept that its predecessors had it right. This is a disgraceful government—a really disgraceful government—and nothing better illustrates that than the squirming that we see from them now.

What have we seen from this government? We have seen a government find a solution and create a problem. We hear constantly from this Prime Minister the demand—she says she is asking—that the coalition adopt a particular policy. The Prime Minister is abusing us to adopt a particular policy. If she wants a bit of cooperation, what about facing up to some facts? The only reason the people smugglers have a business model is that this government created it. This government created the people-smuggler model when it abolished temporary protection visas and dismantled the Pacific solution.

The Prime Minister constantly says, 'Take the expert advice'. I have two responses to this: what did the experts say to her before the High Court decision? What advice did she get before the High Court decision? If she was following expert advice, the expert advice turned out to be not very expert. The other question I have for the Prime Minister is: what did she do with the expert advice, that she was given repeatedly in 2008, that to dismantle the Pacific solution would put the people smugglers back in business? Why did the Prime Minister and her former prime ministerial colleague the now foreign minister, completely ignore the expert advice at this time?

What we have seen from this government is complacency followed by panic. First of all we had the processing freeze which just caused the numbers in detention to go up and up and up. Then we had the lurch to the right that the former prime minister so presciently warned us about. Shortly after the member for Lindsay's jaunt round Darwin Harbour on a patrol boat, we had the East Timor solution—the solution that got lost somewhere in the Timor Sea. Then we had the Manus solution, a solution that was announced before it had been negotiated and which has never come to pass, followed by the Malaysian solution.

Let me say of the so-called Malaysian solution that yet again from this government we have had bad policy based on a lie. It is so typical of this government that we have had bad policy based on a lie—whether it is a carbon tax, whether it is boat people—

See this speech in context